Bob De Groot

Bob De Groot is a Belgian comics writer, best known for his collaborations with Turk on the series 'Robin Dubois', 'Léonard' and 'Clifton'. However, he began his career as an artist. Born in Brussels, he was seventeen years old when he enrolled in art school. During this period, he met Maurice Tillieux, whom he assisted on 'Félix', and who became a major influence on De Groot. In the following years, De Groot produced up to 300 pages for weekly newspaper supplements, as well as short stories for Pilote in from scripts by Hubuc, Reiser and Fred. It was with Fred that he created the funny espionage serial 'L'Agent Caméléon 4 x 8 = 32'. They were joined by the artist Turk to assist on the graphical part of the series.

It was the beginning of a longtime collaboration between De Groot and Turk, that was continued with 'Archimède' in the mini-books section of Spirou in 1968. They joined Tintin in the following year and created their first comical 'Robin Dubois' stories. It became one of their best known creations that was collected in book format by Lombard and Dargaud between 1979 and 1998. Also for Tintin, the duo took over the secret agent series 'Clifton' from Jo-El Azara (created originally by Raymond Macherot) in 1970. De Groot has remained the scriptwriter of the series throughout the 1980s, working with the artist Bédu between 1986 and 1990.

In the early stages of their collaboration, Turk and De Groot cooperated on both artwork and scenario. But eventually, De Groot took on most of the writing duties, while Turk focused on the artwork. By 1975, the duo created 'Léonard', their longest running series and a spoof on Leonardo da Vince. It was first published in Achille Talon Magazine and also gained a lot of popularity in the Netherlands through its publication in Eppo magazine. Books have been published subsequently by Dargaud, Appro and Le Lombard since 1977.

Robin Dubois, artwork by Turk & De Groot

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, De Groot expanded his collaborations, and wrote scripts for 'Le Club des Peur-de-Rien' (art by Tibet, assisted by Turk), 'Chlorophylle' (art by Dupa and Walli), 'Digitaline' (by Jacques Landrain, the first comic created entirely on a computer, 1989), 'Des Villes et des Hommes' (art by Francq) and short stories with Tibet, Greg, Géri, and Dany. He wrote the 'Lucky Luke' story 'Le Bandit Manchot' in 1981, and worked with the artist Morris again between 1995 and 2001 on the 'Ran-tan-plan' spin-off series drawn by Vittorio Leonardo, as well as two new 'Lucky Luke' episodes ('Marcel Dalton', 1998 and 'L'Artiste Peintre', 2001).

In 1993, he teamed up with artist André Taymans and fellow writer Jean-François di Giorgio to write the second story of 'Sam Griffith, published by Éditions Alpen. By 1999 he began a collaboration with Michel Rodrigue on three albums of 'Doggyguard' (1999-2000) and new 'Clifton' stories between 2003 and 2006. He resumed 'Robin Dubois' in the following year, but now with Ludo Borecki and Miguel Díaz Vizoso. Turk and De Groot's 'Leonard' also retuned to the pages of Eppo, after the magazine's relaunch in 2009.

New series include 'Père Noël & Fils' with Philippe Bercovici (2006-2008) and 'Le Bar des acariens' with Godi (2008-2009), that were both published by Glénat.